I'm Really a Superstar

Later that morning.

In the study on the second floor of Old Wu"s house.

"Old Wu, I"ll be using your computer for a while."

"Go ahead."

"You"re really not going to the office today?"

"I"ve already asked for the day off, so I won"t be going and will be resting today."

"Yeah, don"t exhaust yourself. Let the people below handle things for now."

"I"ll leave you to whatever you"re doing. I"m going out to buy some groceries so that I can whip up something good for you when noon rolls around."

"Alright, thank you so much."

Wu Zeqing went back to her bedroom to get changed.

When Old Wu left, Zhang Ye turned on the computer immediately. This was not the computer that Wu Zeqing usually used. That laptop was kept in her bedroom. This computer in the study was just an extra one. Other than the commonly used programs, it was basically clean and did not have much software installed on it.

He connected to the Internet and loaded a web page.

He downloaded a software client from the Online Go Server.

After installing it, Zhang Ye launched it and had a look. The interface was very clean and professional looking. It was worthy of being the country"s largest Internet Go server. It was split into many different sections, including the beginner section, the amateur section, the professional section, the practice section, the free play section, and even had an events and tournament mode. Zhang Ye logged on to the server as a guest and found that he could only access the beginner section. So he typed in some information to register an account.

What should he call himself?

Alright, I"ll just go with "YE." This was the romanized spelling of his Chinese name "烨."

After he completed the account registration, he managed to gain access to most of the sections in the server.

In the public chat box, there were quite a lot of people "shouting."

"Someone come to the amateur section!"

"Amateur5-dan1playerLF2similar level opponent!" 

"LF teachers for instruction."

"LF good player with good connection speed. No handicap!"

"Haha, I"ve won three in a row and got promoted in rank!"

"There"s a live broadcast of a professional match in the afternoon. Who"s watching?"

"Not me. Today"s match won"t be interesting as those two pros are both newcomers, so there"s a limit to how good they are. Tomorrow"s match between Daqi and Liu Di 7-dan is the match to watch!"

"I have to say, Old Liu is no longer as strong as he was back when."

"Yeah, he"s getting old."

There were many people online and the server was bustling with activity. The atmosphere in here was also quite good.

Meanwhile.

Old Wu"s parents" house.

After breakfast, Wu Changhe asked his wife, "What did that kid say?"

Li Qinqin said, "What else can he say? If you don"t want him to be here, do you think he would come over?"

Wu Changhe harrumphed, "If he ever calls again, don"t answer. His character is much too awful!"

"I don"t see that at all." Li Qinqin shook her head.

Wu Changhe scorned, "That"s because you don"t have enough social experience. Let me tell you this: We mustn"t let our daughter mix with him too much. Quickly continue looking for a few more candidates that we can introduce to her. How dare he try those dirty tricks on me? He even dares to sneak up on me while I had my defenses down? Does he take me, Changhe 9-dan, to really be a weakling? He must not know that even I am afraid of myself when I get serious! Just because he beat me once by sneaking up on me, he"s getting all arrogant? He even dares to find his way up to my house now to challenge me? Fancy that! How very impulsive! If it weren"t for our daughter"s sake, I would definitely have made him come over. I would slaughter him in a 10-game match and leave him without a win. Don"t you believe me?"

Li Qinqin rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say."

Wu Changhe stood up and strolled back inside the den. He powered on his computer and said, "Don"t disturb me. I"m going online to see if I can find an opponent to play against."

The computer turned on.

He went online.

Then signed into the Online Go server.

As Wu Changhe was quite old, he wasn"t too familiar with operating a computer and was still using "two-fingered typing3."

Li Qinqin brewed a pot of tea for him as usual.

Wu Changhe sipped the tea and hummed a Peking opera tune as he bobbed his head around while searching for players on the server.

All of a sudden, he received a message from someone on his friends" list who probably saw him come online.

Beep beep.

Sun Minqi: "Teacher Changhe, you"re online today?"

Wu Changhe hunt-and-peck typed: "Oh, it"s Little Sun."

Sun Minqi: "Are you free now? Could you give me an instructional game?"

Wu Changhe smiled and said: "Sure, I was just looking for an opponent."

Sun Minqi said excitedly: "I"ll wait for you to set up a room then. I"ll go look for you there."

Wu Changhe quickly got a room set up with a pa.s.sword. Other players were allowed to access this room to view the match, but not allowed to play against him. Only the person with the pa.s.sword was allowed to do so. This was what was commonly known as a "private game" on the Internet Go servers. Then he sent the pa.s.sword to Sun Minqi and his opponent joined the game very quickly.

The battle was about to start.

With this matchup, many of the netizens on the server were attracted to the game.

"Wow, Table 288 in Zone 2! Quickly come and see this!"

"It"s Changhe 9-dan vs. Sun Minqi 3-dan!"

"A battle of Go pros!"

"Is it an instructional game?

"It"s probably a serious match!"

"Is that so? Then we must definitely go over and watch!"

"Changhe 9-dan? A G.o.d of the Go world!"

"Yeah, he once stood at the top of the Go world. The current number one and number five players in the World Go Ratings List were both his disciples once!"

Wu Changhe clearly often came online to play Go and had many netizens following his games. When the game began, the netizens received a notification and came over to watch immediately!

The number of viewers soared!

100!

500!

1,000!

There were also a few professional players" accounts that appeared in the viewers list in the room. These players were all the more well-known ones among the currently active professional players!

The Go match began.

Wu Changhe would be playing second as he took the white stones.

Sun Minqi, who took black, would start the play.

This match went by quickly, due to Sun Minqi committing an error that a pro shouldn"t have made around the 30th move. Wu Changhe seized on this and pressed him hard. In the end, Sun Minqi was forced to resign midmatch.

The viewers exclaimed endlessly.

"What a beautiful match!"

"Teacher Wu is still as good as ever!"

"Yeah, a master is a master. He plays so steadily!"

"Actually, if Teacher Changhe had continued to play in professional Go tournaments, he would definitely still be a very high level pro. I wonder why he decided to retire."

"Amazing!"

"I had fun watching!"

Wu Changhe started to give his opponent an explanation of the game through replay. "Over here, why did you make this move?"

Sun Minqi typed: "It was a mistake."

Wu Changhe: "It would have been better to go this way."

"Thank you for your guidance," Sun Minqi said earnestly.

Back at home.

Wu Changhe was laughing loudly. "Fill the teapot, fill it up!"

Li Qinqin came over with a thermos. She said with a smile, "Did you win?"

"But of course!" Wu Changhe was very happy.

Li Qinqin asked, "Who did you play against?"

Wu Changhe said, "Sun Minqi, Little Sun."

Li Qinqin said, "Little Sun hasn"t been ranked all that high this year. He"s been average."

"Haha, it"s not that he"s bad, it"s that I"m too good," Wu Changhe bragged. "If I took part in a pro tournament, I"m sure that I could still play as I did 20 years ago. Do you believe me?"

Li Qinqin reluctantly said, "Of course I believe you. Is that good enough for you?" She followed up with, "But I wonder who it was that got defeated by an amateur yesterday even though he had been given a two stone handicap."

But Wu Changhe didn"t even seem to hear these words. "I"ll continue playing. This time, I"m going to find a higher level player. Otherwise, it won"t be fun to play!"

On the server.

There were a lot of people who were asking to play him. Some were amateurs, while others were professionals.

Wu Changhe just laughed as he started picking who he wanted to play next. The number of netizens who came to view the game also increased!

But right as Wu Changhe was deciding on who to play against next, he suddenly saw that someone had come in to take Sun Minqi"s place after Little Sun had left the room. It wasn"t a viewer but a player who had taken the seat across from him. However, Wu Changhe remembered that he had set a pa.s.sword for the room, so an outsider couldn"t have just taken the seat like this. Could Little Sun have given this player the pa.s.sword then? This Little Sun, how could he be so unparticular like that!

Who was this person?

YE?

It wasn"t a real name?

The fellow Go players were all getting thrilled.

"Someone"s here!"

"There"s another player!"

"Who is it?"

"I don"t know."

"His registration date is today?"

"d.a.m.n, who could this be? Did Teacher Changhe send the invite?"

A lot of the spectators were startled.

YE spoke: "Teacher Changhe, please instruct me."

When Wu Changhe saw this, he decided not to kick YE out. He thought that if it was someone that Little Sun had invited, then they should not be too bad. So he decided to go ahead with the game.

The two of them clicked the "Ready" b.u.t.ton.

The game began!

YE took black and went first.

Wu Changhe smiled as he used the mouse to place his stones.

Five moves.

10 moves.

20 moves.

In the beginning, Wu Changhe did not sense anything.

The Go players spectating also did not seem to have noticed anything.

It was just a very common opening, and a very common way of playing. There wasn"t anything new or unusual about the moves, and it even felt a little boring to watch. This game was just too by the book with neither side getting an advantage. But when Black reached the 23rd move, things changed!

It was a beautiful move!

So beautiful that it astonished the viewers!

"Holy s.h.i.+t!"

"What a great move!"

"Wow, this is a good one!"

"This move by the black stones is so powerful!"

This unrestrained move had allowed the black stones that were almost dead in the upper left corner to come back to life!

Wu Changhe was very surprised and tried to rectify the situation!

But after another two moves, he realized that there was nothing he could do about it. He could only clench his teeth and calmly step back from the deadlocked situation in the upper left corner. He would just have to attack in the middle so that he could set up hisopening4in advance!

However, YE did not fall for it. As he had gained the tempo, he played right in the lower right to take on Wu Changhe"s white stones!

His attack was extremely ruthless!

It was extremely aggressive!

Wu Changhe was caught off guard and had to try to turn things around again!

Move after move!

YE kept pressing harder and harder!

Wu Changhe was slowly being pushed back!

Even before they reached the endgame, Wu Changhe"s opening was taken apart when YE placed another stone down on the central region of the board. Wu Changhe stared at the screen with a dark look. He stared at it without blinking and thought for a full ten minutes before giving up and resigning!

YE was victorious!

The room flew into an uproar!

"YE won?"

"f.u.c.k!"

"Changhe 9-dan lost?"

"This…this…"

"How ruthless! Which G.o.dly person is this YE?"

"Yeah, which Go pro"s alt is this?"

"d.a.m.n, weren"t these territorial battles just so beautiful?"

A lot of the people were simply in disbelief!

This was because to them, Changhe 9-dan was already the highest peak to conquer. Although his Go skill had already regressed by a lot, he still should not have lost this badly to an unknown person, right? He didn"t even manage to make it to the endgame? He resigned right in the midgame? H-How could this be!

Wu Changhe broke out in cold sweat!

He immediately went looking for Sun Minqi. "Little Sun, who did you give the pa.s.sword to?"

Sun Minqi was still replaying the match he had just had with Wu Changhe. He was completely confused by this question. "Ah? Teacher Changhe, what pa.s.sword? But I didn"t give it to anyone?"

Wu Changhe quickly typed: "Then who is this YE?"

Sun Minqi said: "I, I don"t know. What YE?"

Only then was Wu Changhe convinced that Sun Minqi did not know anything about this. This YE person that suddenly went into the match room was not invited by Little Sun at all!

Then who are you?

Who the f.u.c.k are you?